<div>Michael and list,</div><div><br></div><div>Mitch's request for "<span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">pieces that begin with short, improvisatory passages that precede more temporally patterned movements" certainly calls for a definition, or at least an approximate working idea, of "improvisatory." I was about to ask Mitch if he has in mind a way to distinguish between what he describes and any arbitrary slow introduction. It hadn't occurred to me to distinguish among "improvisatory," "rhapsodic" and "fantasia." Do you have distinctions in mind among these?</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">I think "improvisatory" can't be taken literally in the context of the original question. Taking it literally for 19th-century repertoire would probably rule out almost everything written for ensembles larger than duos (especially orchestral works, excepting the few concertos with introductory solos, such as the Emperor). For example: Mitch's example of Schumann's quartet Op. 41 No. 3 plays with the harmonic possibilities of a short phrase in a way that I think has an improvisatory feel, but I'd be surprised if any quartet could have improvised these measures of carefully crafted chromaticism. "Stylistically evocative" of improvisation is probably a useful idea, without concern for whether a given passage could actually have been improvised. But of what does "stylistically evocative of improvisation" consist? The imprecision of this notion can probably be reduced by careful thought, but not eliminated.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><br></span></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif">Meanwhile, it seems useful (necessary?) to distinguish between "short, improvisatory passages" and just any slow introduction to a fast movement. I hear the opening of the Pathetique Sonata as more extensive and developed than a "short, improvisatory passage," which is also why I nominated Beethoven's Op. 78 sonata but not Op. 111. One could certainly argue that the opening of Op. 78 doesn't sound improvisatory (although surely Beethoven could have improvised it), but we need criteria. I wouldn't construe the opening of Beethoven's 7th Symphony as improvisatory, but I do think the 4th movement of the 1st Symphony is a good example: it's easily construed as (among other things) playing with different forms of scalar ascent until one of them yields a good continuation. I'm unearthing here my intuitive sense that "improvisatory" has something to do with playing, in a relatively unstructured way, with the possibilities of an underlying simpler idea. (If that's accepted as a criterion, I might withdraw the nomination of Op. 78.)</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif">David O'Dette</font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif">Prime Form Music</font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.primeformmusic.com" target="_blank">http://www.primeformmusic.com</a></font></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif">Washington, DC</font></div><div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 2:09 PM, Michael Morse <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mwmorse@bell.net" target="_blank">mwmorse@bell.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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I'm a bit confused by the terminology here. Are these Beethoven openings best described as "improvisatory"? Or are "rhapsodic" or "fantasia" more fitting? I'm not sure whether "improvisatory" is supposed to be literal or stylistically evocative..<br>
MW Morse<br>
Trent University<br>
Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.<br>
Envoyé sans fil par mon terminal mobile BlackBerry sur le réseau de Bell.<br>
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